


The Truth About Me and the Truth About You

by anistarrose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (or rather humor that evolves into angst), Angst and Humor, Balance Arc, Gen, now with unexpected bonus chapter!, warning for dissociation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-03-19 22:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18979621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anistarrose/pseuds/anistarrose
Summary: AU where everything is the same except Tres Horny Boys have the Red Robe’s Stone of Farspeech number.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Touch-Tone Telephone by Lemon Demon! ~~(which I’ve referenced for fic titles before but that was a different fandom so shhhh)~~
> 
> This started off as crack and slowly morphed into angst, which is honestly a pretty good summary of my writing process in general. Inspired by a certain MBMBAM bit, and specifically [this post by mspainttaz!](https://mspainttaz.tumblr.com/post/184862056690/id-tres-horny-boys-in-a-car-the-caption-says)

Barry doesn’t get a lot of phone calls — hardly even enough to justify owning a Stone of Farspeech in the first place — so it startles him when it vibrates, and a wave of excess magical energy emanates from him and knocks several maps of the moonbase off his desk.

“Hello?” he answers, immediately chiding himself for forgetting to disguise his voice.

“Hi,” Magnus replies cheerfully on the other side of the line. “Is this the Red Robes?”

The wisest course of action by far, Barry knows, would be to simply hang up and block the number — but he’s been so _lonely_ , and it’s so easy to visualize familiar shit-eating grins on his family’s faces…

“Yes,” he replies slowly, careful to will a rasp back into his voice. “This is indeed ‘the Red Robes,’ as you put it.”

On the other end, he hears Taako wheeze in the background as he struggles to muffle a laugh, while Merle hisses: “This just a phone number you can _call_!”

“Yeah, uh — how, exactly, did you get this number?” Barry asks. If they share it with Lucretia, she might be able to track him this way unless he immediately puts some highly specific wards on the stone —

“Oh, Merle won this scrying bowl thing in the Fantasy Gashapon,” Magnus explains matter-of-factly. “Or at least, I think that’s what it was? Leon wouldn’t tell us because Taako stole his candy, so we had to look it up ourselves — but the point is, we asked it for your number and it just gave it to us!”

“Okay, so only like half of those words mean anything to me —”

“They made the Relics and you’re talking to them on the phone!” Taako chortles in the background, evidently not realizing Barry can hear him. “Their number was on Fantasy Scrying Google!”

Barry sighs. He can only imagine how much the boys’ shenanigans must confuse normal people, who don’t have inexplicably hazy memories of search engines from other planes of existence.

“Does L — does your Director know about this? Does she endorse you… _prank-calling_ me, at this ungodly hour of the morning?”

“Oh yeah… we weren’t supposed to be talking to you, we were? Shit.” Magnus genuinely sounds just a _little_ bit guilty. “You won’t tell her, right?”

Barry almost laughs, because he and Lucretia currently are about as far away from speaking terms as you can get, but he catches himself. 

_Think, Barry. You can_ use _this._

“I suppose I can keep your secret, Reclaimers,” he rasps, “but I will need something in return.”

He can practically hear Magnus tense up on the other end of the line. “What do you want?”

“Simply a few pieces of information. A question for Taako, actually — where did you find that Umbra Staff?”

“With a dead guy?” There’s a rustling sound, as Taako presumably moves in closer to Magnus’s Stone of Farspeech. “Or a dead lady, I guess you said it was — I thought we went over that last time, in the lab? You amnesiac or something?”

Barry narrowly holds back a retort of _Not right now, I’m not._ If he had corporeal hands, they would be trembling.

“Yes, we did go over that last time,” he replies, “but you never told me where _physically_. Which is why I’m asking you again. Is that understood?”

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so?” Taako asks him. “It was — uh, let’s see, near where the gauntlet was! Wave Echo Cave, right?”

“Of course.” Barry had already guessed as much, but his mind is still sent racing — if her Umbra Staff was there, why wasn’t Lup? Even if Taako and the others couldn’t remember her, why hadn’t she been with them? He’d always speculated that her lich form had been trapped at the site of her death somehow, but he’d _personally_ gone back to Wave Echo Cave after the destruction of Phandalin, and there had been no sign of her there — and if she _had_ been able to leave the cave on her own, surely she would have long since found her way back to them… 

“Can you tell us who you are yet?” Magnus asks, his familiar voice yanking Barry back to the conversation. It’s just in the nick of time, too — Barry watches his skeletal hands resolidify, his fingertips having nearly dissolved into stray, formless magical sparks.

“Maybe in like… I dunno, seventeen episodes.”

“You said ten episodes last time.”

“Well, I lied. That’s what you get for talking me behind the Director’s back. See ya!”

The second his Stone of Farspeech disconnects, he collapses down into a kneeling position, running through the self-collecting exercises he’s honed over the years of loneliness — counting to ten, thinking back to happier days aboard the Starblaster, shifting his vision into the spectrum in which he can make out thousands of glowing silver threads attached to his robe, stretching up through the roof of his cave and towards the moon. It takes a few minutes, but he feels his magic coalesce into a much more solid, almost tangible form — it seems that talking to the boys was a net positive for his stability in the end.

“If Taako can find your umbrella after all these years, then we’ll find you too eventually, Lup,” he whispers. “I promise.”

***

_They don’t trust you. How can you get them to trust you, before…_

Barry isn’t pacing, exactly, but he is drifting in wide circles around the perimeter of his cave in basically the best way pacing can be approximated by a lich, hoping for an idea to come to him.

_Maybe I should have expected it, with all the ominous warnings I gave them, but if I’d acted more cordial, they might’ve started to remember bits and pieces —_

On his desk, his Stone of Farspeech buzzes, and Barry just _knows_ exactly who it’s going to be before even he answers.

“Hey, is this the Red Robes?” Magnus’s voice is quieter this time despite his greeting being almost exactly the same, and there isn’t any muffled laughter in the background either.

“Just the Red Robe,” Barry corrects. “There’s only one of me.”

“I opened the tube,” Magnus whispers.

“Oh.” Barry mentally kicks himself — he’d been so focused on trying to get Magnus to trust him that he forgot all about the _tube_. “Right. I should have known you would.”

He lets the rasp in his voice dissipate as he goes on — Tres Horny Boys haven’t spoken to his living form in about a year now, anyways. Magnus shouldn’t recognize him. “Do you see now why I asked you not to open it?”

“Can _you_ understand it? I know what I _saw_ — hell, I’m looking at it right now and I can see it just fine, but… I know I’m in a red robe like you, but I can’t think _anything else_ about it. It just all turns to — to static. I can’t _think_.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Do you know why I was in Refuge?”

Barry sighs. “I don’t know if I can tell you. Not ‘cause I’m trying to hide things, but just _physically_.”

“Is it because of the Voidfish?”

Barry doesn’t say anything.

“I swam in its tank.”

That gets a reaction out of him. “You _what_?!”

“It showed me there were other voidfish — and then there was a _boat_ , and a — a bunch of moving circles, I think they were supposed to be planes, with a light and this big darker plane —”

“ _Shit_. Magnus, you need — you can’t think about that. You can’t think about what it showed you. If — if certain people find out that you know, then everything — everything we’ve been working for will fall apart —”

“Everything _we’ve_ been working for?” Magnus echoes. It sounds like he’s struggling to form the words — whether due to the static filling his mind, or simply out of sheer disbelief, Barry isn’t sure.

“Oh, no — no, I didn’t mean — ah, _fuck_ , Magnus, it’s gonna seriously damage your brain if you keep up the questions like this. You need to push this all to the back of your mind, and just —”

“Just trust you?”

 _Magnus still doesn’t trust you. He’ll never trust you — none of them ever will. You’ve ruined everything already, just cut your losses and hang up. Block the number._

He can feel the despair corrupting his form, red sparks leaping down his robed arms — but he can’t hang up, he can’t cut off this line, this lifeline, this _bond_ connecting the two of them, he just _can’t_. He can only cling to it, and put his faith in his family like always — no matter how little they reciprocate it.

_What would Lup do? She’d remember he isn’t in his right mind, but she wouldn’t give up on him, either._

Magnus doesn’t say anything for what feels like an eternity — is he oblivious to Barry’s breakdown? On the verge of a breakdown of his own?

“What do you think about me?” he finally asks.

“Excuse me?” Barry chokes out. His voice has that low hiss in it again — involuntarily this time.

“Like, what kind of person am I? You… you know things about me that I don’t, even I can tell that much, so… what do _you_ think I’m like?”

Barry answers slowly, afraid of saying something that would get blocked by static — or worse, making another slip-up that Magnus can actually _process_. He doesn’t want to know how Magnus would react to hearing that the Red Robe thinks of him like a brother, no matter how sincere that sentiment is.

“I think that you can be impulsive in ways that are sometimes… frustrating, but you’re also incredibly dedicated to protecting people, and I admire that. That impulsivity and that dedication, they spring from the same well of — the same well of willfulness, I think, that same well that makes you such a _fighter_. I don’t know if I could have kept going after something like Raven’s Roost —”

The second he hears the words _Raven’s Roost_ out loud, he immediately regrets them. It’s completely true, that losing a loved one and knowing beyond any doubt that he could never get them back would _destroy_ him, both figuratively and literally — but he shouldn’t know about what happened to Magnus, not in that much detail. Nor should he bring up a painful subject like that, especially given what Magnus thinks of him at the moment —

“I will see Julia again one day,” Magnus assures him in a low, confident voice, as if having read his mind. “In the Astral Plane.”

Barry doesn’t let out a literal breath of relief, but is met with a similar sensation as a wave of stability washes over his spectral form. It’s a far better reaction than he’d dared to hope for.

(Should he tell Magnus that Governor Kalen was long dead, quickly and quietly killed by a crimson lightning bolt that neither he nor any of his mercenaries had seen coming before being tossed in a secluded river, body never to be seen again?) 

(No. He’ll save that story for if — _when_ — Magnus can remember who he is, when they’ll all be safe and able to finally rest after eleven long, grueling decades. It still feels far away, that day of relaxation, of _freedom_ — but it also seems tantalizingly closer than it did just a few minutes ago, when the familiarity of Magnus’s voice and the stubbornly persistent hope of finding Lup were the only things holding Barry together, and just barely at that.)

“Well, hopefully you won’t end up in the Astral Plane _too_ soon,” he says eventually.

“Yeah, I —” Magnus’s voice is genuinely warm for a moment, but it cuts off quickly. “Shit, I think I woke someone up. I’ll be seeing you again whether I want to or not, won’t I?”

“Take care, Magnus.” Before anyone on the other end of the line can overhear anything incriminating, Barry switches his Stone of Farspeech off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments are welcomed as always! 
> 
> This is my first (completed) TAZ fic, but I have plenty more TAZ WIPs, and I post fics for other fandoms (mostly Gravity Falls with the occasional crossover) pretty regularly! I'm also on [Tumblr,](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/) feel free to check me out there if you feel so inclined!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle and Taako both call up the Red Robe on their own time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... I wasn't initially planning to continue this, but the previous one-shot was very well-received and I realized that I actually had more ideas for a sequel than I thought, so here we are!
> 
> (Also available on [tumblr.](https://anistarrose.tumblr.com/post/186688216936/dont-hang-up-yet-im-not-done-taz-balance-au))

The next call Barry gets is in the late afternoon several weeks later, and once again, something tells him exactly who’s going to be on the other end of the line before he even moves to pick it up. 

(Then again, it’s barely been an hour since he gave Merle that cryptic nod, so it’s not exactly difficult to guess the reason for the call.)

“You saved my kids,” Merle whispers, sounding dumbstruck even now. “Why?”

“I — I just — why wouldn’t I? I had the power to stop innocent people from getting hurt. Of _course_ I saved them.”

“Well, that’s real altruistic of you,” Merle murmurs. Bit by bit, his normal enthusiasm creeps back into his voice as he continues: “Not sure how you’re supposed to reconcile that worldview with making the Relics, though. Too bad I can’t cast Zone of Truth over the stone, ha!”

“Yeah, it’s a real shame,” Barry replies. “Anyways, you need to teach your kids to be more careful. Odds are I won’t be around during the next… freak accident.”

“Yeah, their passive perception _stinks_ ,” Merle agrees with a sad laugh. “Or at least Mookie’s does, as much as I love the little fireball. Mavis is a bright little thing when she’s not busy looking after her brother — she reads at a college level, you know! Probably gonna make a hell of a wizard one day!”

“Give it to me like you would under Zone of Truth, Merle — did you call me just to brag about your kids?”

“Don’t tell my boss,” Merle answers in a hushed whisper. “I’ll get my employee phone plan revoked!”

Barry struggles to stifle a laugh. “Merle Hightower Highchurch, calling up the enemy to have a friendly chat? What would the Director _think_?”

Merle laughs too, the irony lost on him. “You know, you’re a much better conversationalist today than you were the first couple times we met. What’s up with that?”

“Uh… I dunno, social anxiety? How’s life on the moon treating you?”

“It’s got its perks. Apparently the gravity is low enough up there that my spinal cord decompressed, so now I’m a millimeter taller — and trust me, I know it doesn’t sound like much, but we dwarves have to take what we can get!”

“I can imagine.” An idea occurs to Barry — it’s a long shot, but worth a try. “How about the gnomes — _are_ there any gnomes up there? How are they doing with the gravity situation?”

“Well, Leon doesn’t ‘like’ me or ‘the crew I hang with’ so I don’t really talk to him. And Davenport, well…”

Barry very nearly short-circuits his Stone of Farspeech as sparks of magic course through his form and down his sleeves. “What _about_ Davenport? How is he?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, and Barry gets a bad feeling that he came across as a little _too_ invested in Davenport’s well-being.

His fears are confirmed when Merle asks: “What, do you know him?”

“Just heard the name in passing,” Barry lies. “Never met him, but most names from the Bureau that I hear in passing end up belonging to pretty important people. What’s his — what does he do for your operation up there?”

“You know, I’ve never really thought about it before, but — if we could make this our little ‘Truth Zone’ here, for just a second — I’m not really sure why Lucretia hired him in the first place. All he can say is his own name, and he always seems kinda anxious about one thing or another — again, I never know what, since he can’t really talk.”

Barry doesn’t know how to reply.

“Damn good at cards, though! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a good game of yooker these days — or even chess, for that matter. You play either?”

“No.” Barry’s pretty sure that Merle and Davenport are the only people in the planar-verse who know how to play the game they’ve dubbed “yooker.” And he doesn’t even want to _think_ about that chess remark.

“Darn. Well, I should probably get going — I can’t miss karaoke night with the boys. We’ve been trying all month to get Lucretia to join us, and she finally let it slip that she hasn’t got anything going on this evening!”

“Oh. Well, uh… don’t let me keep you from that, then. Nice talking to you.”

After he switches his stone off, Barry adds in a whisper: “Wish I could join you.”

***

“Sup, Little Red Riding Robe?”

“Don’t call me that,” the Red Robe groans. From the other end of the line, Taako hears the faint rustling of papers — his call must have interrupted something. He doesn’t feel too bad about it, though.

“What, would you rather be the Big Bad Wolf?” Taako asks. “I thought I was doing you a solid and painting you in a sympathetic light!”

“You know what, fine. Little Red Riding Robe it is,” the Red Robe replies. The hostility in his voice begins to dissipate as he goes on. “Tell me, Taako — is this just another prank call?”

Taako chuckles. “Oh, you wish. See, I stumbled across a piece of info that _might_ just interest you…”

He pauses, waiting to see how the Red Robe reacts, but he’s met with silence.

“I’ve got your _number_ , Riding Robe, idiomatically _and_ literally. So this afternoon I took a quick vacay to the Stone of Farspeech service provider’s offices, cast a few Charm Person spells, and figured out just what name that number was registered to. Pretty clever, huh?”

It might just be Taako’s imagination, but it feels like the silence grows a little more _tense_.

“Now tell me, who’s this Sildar Hallwinter guy?” he asks. “Is that an alias, or did you just mug a dude and take his phone?”

The Red Robe chuckles. “Huh. That’s some genuinely impressive sleuthing — then again, I should’ve expected as much from you, Taako.”

“Well, uh, to tell you the truth… it was technically Angus’s idea — you ever hear about him? The boy detective? Little snoop was going through my dresser and found the paper I jotted down your number on, and dragged me into this quest to track down your true identity.”

“And does he think this case has been cracked wide open by this new info?”

“No. He’s pretty sure Hallwinter isn’t your real name — and don’t tell him I said this, but I trust him on that one-hundred percent. He’s pretty good with this stuff.”

“What did you really call me about if you’re so sure, then?”

_~~What if she’s just gone?~~ _

“Well, I —”

~~_Who?_ ~~

“I…”

_~~I can’t remember her~~ _ ~~face _, Taako!_~~

~~_Whose face?!_ ~~

_~~Please, Taako, just kill me!~~ _

  
  
  
  
  
  


“Taako? Taako, are you with me?”

He doesn’t feel like he’s _with_ anyone. Even lying on his bed, beneath a pile of heavy blankets he doesn’t remember arranging, he still can’t stop shivering. He’s so cold, and so, _so_ alone.

He clutches the Umbra Staff close to his chest, close to his heart. It’s the only warm thing he can feel.

“Please, Taako, can you say something?” the disembodied voice continues. It sounds like it’s trying very hard to stay calm, and mostly succeeding. “Tell me what’s happening? I have Merle and Magnus’s numbers — I can call them if you need someone to come help —”

It also sounds very familiar, but trying to place it makes Taako feel like he’s teetering over the edge of a void, about to lose his balance and plunge into darkness.

“W-who is this?”

“It’s _me_ , Taako, it’s… it’s the Red Robe.”

Taako’s eyes finally land on the Stone of Farspeech at the corner of his bed, and hesitantly extends a hand towards it. It’s not quite as warm as the Umbra Staff — but it’s certainly not cold, either. He pulls it closer, wrapping his fingers around it.

The Red Robe lets out a short, sad chuckle, which the speaker garbles a little bit. “There are some who call me Little Red Riding Robe. Or Sildar Hallwinter.”

“Sh-shit.” Their earlier conversation returns to Taako quickly, as he tries to sit up in bed. His teeth are still chattering slightly when he tries to speak. “I — I dunno what just happened. I just b-blacked out —”

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re gonna be _okay_. It’s not your fault.” There’s a pause. “Hey, do you think you can you tell me a little more about Angus? He seems like a bright kid —”

“He is. B-been picking up magic real fast too. He’s a nosy little shit who never stops asking questions to all two dozen of his adoptive moon parents and I’m so glad Lucretia hired him.”

“He was right about Sildar Hallwinter being an alias, you know. Did he say what tipped him off?”

“He’s got contacts in the police force planetside like you wouldn’t believe. There was hardly anything in any of their files about Sildar, so we talked to Johann and he told us that name never got fed to the Voidfish. From there, Angus just figured that no real person would have that little info about them floating around.”

“Huh. That makes sense. Did Merle and Magnus come along for this adventure, or was it just the two of you?”

“Nah, Magnus was hanging with Carey and Merle was napping. I could hear him snoring from a room away.”

“What about the Director? I’m assuming you didn’t mention this to her?”

“Oh, _hell_ no. She’d throw us straight in the brig if she ever learned how long we’ve had your number without telling her.”

“Yeah, I figured. I trust Merle and Magnus are doing well?”

“Yeah, they’re… well, actually… okay, look. I probably shouldn’t be telling you of all people about this, but something’s been _off_ about Magnus lately. I thought I was imagining it at first, but now I’m _pretty_ sure he’s trying to avoid the Director — which is actually kinda hard these days, since she’s been overseeing our training more and more. And he’s been really awkward around Johann, too. I’ve never seen him like this, and… I’m kinda worried.”

The Red Robe goes silent for a moment. “Well… what happened in Refuge must have been hard on him. I’m sure he’ll feel better soon.”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s pretty tough…” Part of Taako feels guilty for revealing so much to the Red Robe, but part of him doesn’t want to hang up. Magnus and Merle are already fast asleep — what if he blacks out again, and no one’s on the phone to talk him out of it?

Then again… is that what the Red Robe is aiming for? To gain Taako’s trust, and act so supportive that Taako can’t help but reveal sensitive information during a late-night, emotionally vulnerable ramble?

~~No, Barry wouldn’t do that. If he wants information, it’s just because he’s worried about you.~~

“Well, this has been a great chat, Riding Robe,” Taako says with an exaggerated yawn. “But I’ve got to get to bed. You never know if tomorrow will end up being a long day of saving the world.”

“You do that,” the Red Robe tells him. “And remember, you can always call me back if you need to.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. G’night.”

***

Magnus’s body is gone, and it’s Barry’s fault.

(Strictly speaking, it’s the fault of the Animus Bell. It taunts him even now, tucked safely away in the possession of the Reclaimers, calling to him and promising to ensure his family survives when the Hunger comes. To bring Lup back from whatever worse-than-undeath fate she met. But Barry recognizes enough of his own voice in his Relic to know that it’s lying.)

Barry made the bell, he put it out into a world that was not his own, and both that world and his family paid dearly.

_I’m going to find a way to get your body back, Magnus. I promise._

“I think we deserve some answers from you,” Magnus slowly declares, still holding his detached mannequin arm in his remaining hand. Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem angry — just tired.

_Oh Magnus, you don’t know the half of it,_ Barry thinks. He doesn’t say anything, but he nods to Magnus and then holds out his hand, creating an illusory Stone of Farspeech in his skeletal palm.

And one by one, without exchanging any words between each other, the three Reclaimers hand their stones over — first Magnus, slowly and solemnly; then Merle, with a guilty look on his face; and finally Taako, hesitant as he begins to raise his hand but resolute by the time he plucks the stone from his ear.

Barry flicks his hand, and the devices shatter.

“I’ll buy you new ones soon,” he promises. “But let’s get you those answers first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, comments are welcomed as always!
> 
> (To be honest, a solid forty to fifty percent of the reason I decided to continue this was because Merle is canonically the type of person who'd call up the "enemy" for a friendly conversation in which he tries to befriend them, so why wouldn't he try and do so here?)


End file.
